27 – The Damned Sword

Magma poured through the hole Ashley had carved, cascading into the chamber.

The glowing pool rose rapidly, a thick and hungry tide. Aury’s chains stretched taut as the familiar floated as high as the links allowed, leaving only a few inches between his doughnut-shaped body and the bubbling magma below.

The Balrok’s arm burst through the opening. Rock cracked and rained from above as the massive limb forced its way deeper into the chamber. Searching blindly, the beast swept its wounded hand through the air, smashing against the rock walls and churning the magma into violent waves.

One wave rose higher than the rest, rolling across the chamber like a molten wall. Its glowing crest raced straight toward Aury.

“A bit of assistance, Mistress?” Aury asked politely while a wave of lava surged directly toward him.

“Fine.” Ashley sighed, shifting her grip and bringing the staff up with both hands.

She drove the weapon downward, plunging the shaft deep into the rising sludge that now reached her chest.

“[Glacial Burst].”

The instant its tip struck the floor, the molten sea froze. The transformation raced outward in every direction with explosive speed. Boiling magma hardened into stone, then into ice-rimed rock in the span of a single heartbeat.

Waves halted mid-crest. Glowing currents vanished beneath a sudden web of frost that blanketed the entire chamber.

A killing cold snapped through the air, the temperature plunging so fast that her breath turned into crystals. Ice blossomed over the walls and floor. Stalactites glittered sharp and white overhead, while jagged spikes of frost erupted from deep cracks in the stone.

Even the Balrok’s arm seized in place. The limb shuddered as the freezing wave raced along its length. Frost crawled over the obsidian hide, spreading from the two remaining fingers to the shoulder until a thick dusting of ice crystals locked the black surface in place.

“Happy now?”

Ashley turned, her lips pulling into a faintly annoyed pout as she broke free from the frozen rock, leaving a perfect mold of her lower body embedded in the stone.

Aury tugged at the chains. Brittle from the violent shift between extreme heat and freezing cold, the links snapped apart one after another. The familiar immediately drifted upward to reclaim his usual spot atop his mistress’s head.

“Very much so, my liege.” The familiar glowed with an almost cheerful light. “Though your mana and Health seem to be running rather low.”

“As if I hadn’t noticed,” Ashley said, leaning lightly against her staff like she had all the time in the world. “Using ice magic in this heat is rough. We’ll top off again in a bit.”

A tremor shook the frozen chamber.

The Balrok’s sword crashed down beside its trapped arm, no longer blazing, but still hot enough to hiss through the ice and stone in a blinding spray of steam.

Beneath the frozen crust, the claw twitched. Cracks webbed rapidly through the stone entombing it as the monster strained to tear itself free, using the blade to cut the ice on the ceiling.

Ashley raised the [Forgotten Moon Staff], aiming at the trapped limb. She felt her enchanted heart slam so hard it nearly burst from her chest as her mana dropped to zero.

Then she invoked the spell.

“[Infinite Judgment].”

A breathless heartbeat of absolute stillness hung in the room.

Then a solid column of incandescent light tore straight down through the ceiling, dragging the Balrok with it as the monster came tearing through the upper level.

Stone, ice, and entire sections of the cavern above vanished into the light while the spell bored deep through layers of rock and frozen magma. The whole chamber convulsed. Debris rained from above as the weight of collapsing rock rolled through the dust-filled air.

The beast thrashed in agony.

Ashley kicked off the frozen ground and shot upward, her wings snapping open as she carried Aury above the collapsing ceiling and into open air over the city.

Only then did the true scale of the devastation reveal itself.

Dark clouds churned beneath the distant cavern roof, circling slowly around the fading pillar of light that continued far below the city and disappeared into the depths of the mountain.

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At the center of the destruction lay the Balrok.

The monster had been smashed into a vast crater of vitrified stone, its wings reduced to smoldering stumps while its massive body twitched amid the heat and smoke. Frost spread outward from the impact zone in a vast ring.

Around the crater, entire sections of the city had frozen solid. Towers, streets, and battlements glittered beneath thick layers of ice, while nearly half of the boiling lava moat surrounding the wall had hardened into jagged obsidian slabs streaked with dull orange light beneath the frozen crust.

“That spell is becoming a favorite of yours,” Aury said from above her head.

“Almost. Nothing compares with [Cleansing] at the moment,” Ashley replied, closing her eyes, basking in the numb sensation of her veins completely emptied of magic.

So normal. This is what normal feels like.

She opened her eyes, looking down at the ruined landscape suspended far beneath her bare feet.

“Well, if you don’t count the flying part. Anyway.” She caught her breath. “[Mana Well].”

The ambient energy spiraled inward, permeating her body. Her secondary pulse flared back to life with a heavy throb, delivering a sudden rush that hung somewhere between absolute omnipotence and hollow sadness.

Below, the Balrok pushed itself up, clawing at the edge of the pit. It flapped the charred remnants of its wings, trying to drag itself out of the pit, but the brittle glassified surface crumbled beneath its grip.

It roared in pain at the sky, cutting the air with its black sword.

“We should…” Aury’s light flickered.

“Terminate the heretic. Right?” Ashley finished for the halo, her voice flat, carrying a quiet note of reluctance.